Our lab has applied a high-power MRI technique called DENSE to image heart wall and carotid artery wall motion in detail. DENSE stands for Displacement ENcoding with Stimulated Echo and is pioneered in our lab. We successfully developed this year the scan protocol and data processing software for heart and blood vessel wall strain and motion mapping. We developed an image processing software package that is able to generate within 10 minutes segmental contractile strain curves and various functional maps of the myocardial wall from DENSE MRI data. In collaboration with clinical sites this technique has been used in patients of various heart diseases.[unreadable] We also validated our detailed vessel wall strain measurements with hand-traced contours of the lumen of the carotid artery in normal volunteers. Since the stiffness of the arterial wall is an indication of vascular diseases and is related to the formation of atherosclerotic lesions, this technique holds potential in the diagnosis and management of these diseases.